Opus 2021-045: Cornerstone Considerations: D of I, Power Sources

Here is a relatively long paragraph from the beginning of the Declaration of Independence.  If you have it memorized then it is just for reference, if not, it might be inspiring to read it again.

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness-That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.  Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.  But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.  Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.  The History of the present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.  To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

The first sentence, dealing with “all men created equal” and “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”, has been discussed in many forums at many times.  I am sure I will chime in on that repeatedly myself but today I want to focus on the two mentions made about the sources of what we hold dear.

First we have the source of our rights.  Notice that this is the “Creator”.  When I was teaching this to my middle school students I kept running into the impossible-to-believe ignorance they lived in.  They did not have a clue to what “Creator” meant, let alone “endowed” or “unalienable”.  What was even worse, they did not know they needed to understand them or how to look up the meanings if they felt a need.  

The source of our rights is God Himself.  I would have my students read this and then ask them where our rights came from.  The almost universal answer was, “The government”.  After I got through screaming we took another look at it.  The basic belief of the Founders whether they were Christians, Deist, Jewish or garden variety pagan was that certain rights are given to us by whatever the overwhelming source of power is.  That could be Jesus or the sacred oaks of the Druids but it certainly wasn’t the government.

There is a second source referred to in this paragraph.  It is found in the phrase,

“deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed...”

This is why the Constitution will, in a few years, start with the words, “We the Elite of the United States”.  I know this is heresy to our political betters, the Progressives*, but they are supposed to be listening to us.  Power is supposed to flow up from the people, not down from the elite.  

Power is meant to flow.  It flows from God to the people and only then to the government.  The people taking over America are trying to isolate the church and silence the people.  They are doing it with lock downs, fear and censorship.  Our hope is in us as individuals getting the order right and demanding that government become responsive to us again.

homo unius libri